Helena Searcaigh, founder of GymTote Ltd, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
We are GymTote – a totally unique product in the marketplace. Our bags look like a handbag but perform like a fully functional gym bag. Since we began selling in September 2014, we’re performing in the top 3% of Shopify sites set up in the same year. We sell 30% of our products in the US and are now working to secure wholesale orders across the US & Canadian markets.
Currently, 95% of our sales come direct from our website. With no paid for marketing or PR, we have achieved international press coverage in over 45 publications in the UK, US, Australia, Spain and the Netherlands across fitness, fashion and lifestyle titles – an estimated media value of £3.4m – seeing our bags covered in titles like Vogue, Elle, Women’s Health and the New York Times.
We’ve run an instagram and blogger outreach programme (again for free) to achieve coverage with some of the biggest fitness and fashion influencers in the UK, Australia and the US. We’ve worked with big brands (again for free) – such as Fitness First, SoulCycle and Barrys Bootcamp – on database and email marketing campaigns to help promote our business to their customers, as well as flash promotions and social media competitions.
Our initial start up budget was just £20,000, and we have turned over £134,000 so far in sales. The business is run by Helena, who had the idea for the brand in 2012, and Nicola, the design brains behind the bags.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
